Schools in Florida's Orange County target classics, popular novels to keep sex out of class
By: Ralph Ellison (Orlando Sentinel)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
ORLANDO, Fla. — The classic novels "A Room With a View" and "Madame Bovary" and the epic poem "Paradise Lost" — published in England more than 350 years ago — have been at least temporarily rejected by Orange County Public Schools for sexual content that educators fear runs afoul of a new Florida law.
Novels that in past years were frequently taught in OCPS high school classes, such as "The Color Purple," "Catch-22," "Brave New World" and "The Kite Runner," have been put on the rejected lists, too, as have novels by Toni Morrison and Ayn Rand and popular, turned-into-movies books like "Into the Wild," and "The Fault in Our Stars."
The lists of books rejected and approved for OCPS classrooms are not finalized yet as district media specialists continue their summer work of reviewing all books in classroom libraries, said several people familiar with the process.
Some books rejected earlier this summer, among them "The Scarlet Letter" and Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," have since been approved, according to the lists shared with the Orlando Sentinel by a district teacher and by an advocacy group that obtained a rejection list through a public records request. Other books have been approved but only for certain grades.
Four plays by William Shakespeare, including "A Midsummer Night's Dream," are currently listed as approved for grades 10 through 12 only, as is Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" and Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire," the lists show.
For many of the books, the reason for at least a temporary rejection is sex. "Depicts or describes sexual conduct (not allowed per HB 1069-2023)," reads the explanation, referencing a new state law passed by the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The new law makes book challenges easier and, if the concern is sexual content, requires the books to be removed from the shelves within five days and remain inaccessible to students while being reviewed. Republican lawmakers said they passed it to make sure pornography and books that depict sexual activity are kept from children.
But critics say the effort has wrongly labeled many books pornographic, when state law says, in part, that books with sexual content or nudity are considered pornography only if they are "without serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."
A law passed last year requires media specialists — teachers with training to be school librarians — to review books. Rules adopted by the state in January told them to "err on the side of caution" when selecting books for school libraries or approving them for classroom collections. Those laws and rules are guiding OCPS' review.
Still, some OCPS teachers said they were shocked to see what books are being flagged as potentially objectionable.
"The last thing I would have expected to be rejected is Milton," said one English teacher, noting that John Milton's "Paradise Lost," published in 1667, is considered a "cornerstone of Western literature."
The teacher is compiling and updating a list of rejected OCPS books and starting this past weekend others shared his list on Facebook, Reddit and TikTok. He asked that his name and the name of his high school not be identified for fear of facing discipline.
The list he has pulled together shows more than 150 books labeled as rejected.
The state's new laws and rules wrongly imply "I have horrible intentions for my students," the ninth-grade English teacher said, when like others he shares and teaches books he hopes will engage the teenagers in his classes.
"We are in this because we really care about the stuff that we teach and really care about the content we get to introduce our students to," he said.
If the rejected list doesn't change, he said, he will have to remove novels like "The Hand Maid's Tale" and "Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream" from his classroom bookshelves as they are rejected for all grades, as well as "Crime and Punishment" and "In Cold Blood," which are now rejected for ninth grade, which he teaches.
Michael Ollendorff, an OCPS spokesman, said via email Monday that no one was available to comment because of limited staffing ahead of the July Fourth holiday. But he also said the book review process is ongoing. "The books you are inquiring about have not been rejected but are rather still going through reviews."
OCPS has taken a more conservative approach than many other school systems as it reviews books teachers keep in their classrooms for their lessons or for students to borrow for independent reading, said Stephana Ferrell, an Orange County mother and co-founder of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, which formed to challenge book bans statewide.
The project, through public records requests, obtained an OCPS rejected list dated June 14 and a copy of the guidance given to media specialists as they began reviewing book titles, which teachers had uploaded to an online system.
That guidance told media specialists, "You are tasked with protecting your colleagues, yourself, and OCPS to ensure content being made available to students is in compliance with Florida Statutes."
"It comes down to fear," Ferrell said, "and again the erring on the side of caution."
And the result is that books that have been taught for years are now being questioned.
"It's not just new books. It's classics. It's things that we would have otherwise thought would be perfectly fine. You've got Shakespeare being called into question," she said. "You've got the chilling effect in action and there will be hundreds of books lost to this unnecessary, bureaucratic scare tactic."
Some of the books now on the rejected list are ones that are included in the state-approved language arts textbook OCPS teachers use or in district-provided curriculum plans that have been in place in recent years, said the teacher who is compiling the list of rejected books.
John Green's novel "Paper Towns," is excerpted in the textbook, for example, the teacher said, and "I Know Why the Caged Bird Signs" and the epic poem "Metamorphosis" are in the district curriculum plan. All are currently rejected, according to his list.
He said he thinks administrators are being so cautious with books because the district has not been popular with the Florida Department of Education and state leaders since the COVID-19 pandemic when it was one of 12 districts that challenged state rules and imposed a face mask mandate.
Some teachers may try to "weather the storm" and still teach the books they value, he said. But others are scared. "I know a lot of people can't throw caution to the wind," he added.
"I don't fault our county. I think our county is erring on the side of extreme caution in order to protect their employees," said another OCPS English teacher who asked not to be named for fear her comments could hurt her school's media specialist, who she said is doing her best to approve books within the confines of the new law.
The teacher said she was "gobsmacked" when she saw "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was rejected initially and angry when novels she'd taught for Advanced Placement literature classes, including "The Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison and "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving, were nixed, too.
She selects novels "to engage my students, to offer them literature that makes them think," and some books meant to describe "the adolescent experience" contain sexual content. But they are not pornographic or inappropriate and it upset her to see them on the rejected list.
"It's just so frustrating and disheartening," she said.
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The Fault In Our Stars?
Friday Night Lights?
This is getting ridiculous. The dumbing down of society.
It's disgusting. The American people need to wake up and realize how our society is being undermined by this attempt at a hard-right reactionary make over.
It is like living in a nany state. Now now, we can't let your kids read these things.
For people that express having a voice in education, they sure like to restrict voices...
I have read this list of books and think the grade level is appropriate to each work.
But it's not just the hard right. Montgomery County, MD is one of the wealthiest and bluest counties in the nation has a citizen lawsuit underway against the school board and superintendent over the school system’s updated curriculum that includes books for young students featuring LGBTQ characters. The parents argue that the district’s lack of an opt-out option violates their First Amendment rights.
This doesn't get as much press since the parents are affluent Dems and several are Muslim.
It only takes 1 hard right parent to protest a book. They are not banned based majority rule.
They're not banned at all. Schools do not have the authority to ban books.
There is a gargantuan difference between "something is not appropriate for this grade level" and "something is banned".
It seems that banned/removed/under review/quarantined has many people wondering what the terms actually mean. Currently, in the Florida county that I live in (Marion) there are seven books that have been removed, they are not available at all in the school district. There are dozens more that are quarantined (not available until reviewed)
And the Moms for Liberty are filing against numerous books and of which they have never read per their own admission.
I really don't have a problem with reviewing what's available in school libraries, just like I don't have a problem reviewing curriculum.
It's not done nearly often enough.
Educators as a group generally despise change, which is one major reason so much of the curriculum is outdated to the point of uselessness. Which, in turn, is one of the major reasons we have behavior problems and low achievement.
In the case of hyper-mommy groups, it's important to remember they work both ways. The kids whose parents care intently about their children having access to books about whatever controversial topic are going to make sure those kids have access to those books.
Reviewing curriculum is fine, what gets to me is this particular group, ''Moms for Liberty'' are, IMO nothing more than another group that has both a political and religious crusade and can simply by filing a form have a book pulled and then it waits forever how long to be reviewed and can do this without ever reading the book.
They are a political organization that advocates against school curriculums that mention LGBT rights, race, and ethnicity, CRT.
This is something that I have no respect or use for. I do not need or want these people telling me what my children can or cannot read.
Florida, like many other states, has a huge shortage of teachers, and with all the nonsense going on in Florida with DeSantis and his culture war agenda instead of gaining teachers we are losing more teachers.
Of late school board meetings have turned very ugly with even conservatives turning against the nonsense that is permeating our state and the educational system here.
Um, so?
How can history be, "outdated"?
Moms for Liberty are not in charge. They can request a review. The fact that it takes forever to review a book is a school mismanagement problem.
But they're not, are they? They don't have that ability. They are demanding a review, which is probably long overdue anyway. Zero people have attempted to tell you or your kids what you/they can read.
New artifacts are uncovered. New documents are discovered. New documents are declassified. New scientific discoveries offer better explanations of human behaviors at the time.
I didn't say they were, my comment is crystal clear as to their part and the reviews.
Yes, they have and currently are. The zero people that you are referring to happen to exist and have pulled and removed books in the Florida school districts.
The Moms for Liberty is a political organization that advocates against school curriculums that mention LGBT rights, race, ethnicity, and CRT.
Whatever we do let's not teach anything that actually happened or is happening in the US if it doesn't fit their narrative of a perfect America without any blemishes. And whatever we do let's not learn from past history and try to improve our country, let's live in a fantasy world. It's difficult to be an exceptional nation without understanding and correcting past injustices and moving forward as one nation.
And this stops you reading them how, exactly?
Out of curiosity, does your local elementary school library have a copy of Avner Freiman's textbook on Partial Differential Equations? No? Does that mean they are somehow prohibiting you from reading it?
Yes. We know. So what? They have no regulatory authority. All they can do is complain. Which, incidentally, puts them in exactly the same situation as any group you have ever seen protest.
Unless you are the nation's largest teachers union, then you would be able to dictate this admin's policies...or unless you are a group of parents that wanted to speak at school board meetings...then you could face the wrath of the current DOJ and FBI.
I don't read them as you should know but for kids that do not have the financial resources or ability to get to a public library, it is difficult, if not impossible.
I don't know if they have it but they don't have The Metaphysics of Modern Existence and it has nothing to do with prohibiting anyone from reading it.
Since our governor and many other Republicans running for the presidency have spoken at their latest conference and sought out their support they are different than many other protest groups. DeSantis has actually campaigned and endorsed for some seeking local school board seats and of course, one that is tied to the DeSantis administration won a seat on the Sarasota Schools Board and also had strong support by the Proud Boys.
They really aren't like any other group I've seen protest.
Exactly. None of this has anything to do with anybody prohibiting anybody else from reading anything.
Right. Normally it's Democrats who do that sort of thing.
Do you actually give ideas consideration beyond which political tribe supports them?
The comment and book was simply to show you that your analogy didn't have anything to do with my comment, and also how it can affect some students.
LOL, deflection noted. Convenient how you left out ties to the DeSantis administration and also that racist group, the Proud Boys. Oh, just as an added bit of information for you, the Proud Boys have a member on the Sarasota Republican Executive Committee and four on the Miami Dade Republican Executive Committee. I suppose that some think having a violent racist group as part of your party and supporting a group/person on a school board is a good thing.
I certainly do, in fact I have worked to get Repubican politicans elected when they weren't RWNJ. And how about you since you defend anything to the right, are you the non partisan that you claim to be or simply a partisan hack?
You're talking to a brick wall here. He's against public libraries.
So, it seems the press prefers reporting when the parents are Christian Repubs. Surprised you didn't get that.
= moronic hypocrites
No, it was you ignoring the point that there are no victims here.
Convenient how you omitted any and all citation on the matter. Always assume I don't believe rumors, especially when some political group has something to gain by spreading them.
You obviously don't read all of my comments. Not that you should. I assume you have better things to do.
If you review several of our conversations, it seems like we have a trend where you're convinced every time a Republican gets out of bed in the morning a new set of victims are created, and I don't buy that.
Not at all, it seems that you cannot conceive of the fact that some students don't have the financial backing to run out and buy books that they no longer have access to.
Convenient only in the fact that I've posted citations on all of them numerous times on NT. Here are some of them again.
No, I don't but those that I do read certainly tend to support the right.
Certainly a bit of your imagination running full throttle. I guess that saying that you defend every hair-brained Republican idea would be much closer to the truth.
500 showed to protest at the summer school board meeting late last month.
You still haven't noticed that you only give a shit about that when it has to do with your whole "Republican persecution" belief system.
I don't read all of your posts, either.
So basically this woman appeared in a photo with a Proud Boy. The Proud Boys... in a completely unsurprising situation... want conservative candidates to win. And in your mind, this somehow equates to what?
This is like saying "Antifa supported Biden, so he must be one of them." Or.. "Bill Clinton is in a photo with Jeffrey Epstein, so he must be a child molester". It's more than a bit ridiculous.
I'm sure you think so. But you're not listening to yourself.
Really, is that a professional opinion or a wild-ass guess when you have nothing better to present.
Seems in your mind it equates to nothing completely ignoring the mission of the Proud Boys, their racist agenda and her not condemning them, and you seem to have skipped the other links that I supplied for you.
A little self awareness on your part would help but you seem to have forgotten to listen to yourself.
I guess we'll know for sure if Mom's for Liberty go after the DiffEQ book.
Correct. I don't hold people... regardless of political lean... responsible for failing to condemn every extremist in the world, regardless of the nature of the extremist.
The Christian bible is about as lewd as it gets. All of that begetting makes me blush!
Pedophilia, incest, human sacrifice, rape, murder, slavery, it's all there in the Bible, and none of it is denounced.
the incestuous xtian family fuck-fest that began with adam and eve.
I believe that is called parthenogenesis.
[✘]
They do not pertain to the comment I am replying to. If you would read the comment thread you wouldn't have to ask these silly question.
I read the thread, but it would have been more appropriate if I had asked cjcold.
No actually it wouldn't have been. The bible and christianity is the predominate religion in Florida and the rest of this country, trying to include a different religion is just trying to deflect from the subject at hand.
Nothing in thread 1.2 - 1.2.8 is about Florida and nothing in the seed is about the Bible.
The deflection is yours, cjcold's and devangelical's.
Read the article that you are commenting on. More silly questions.
We are commenting about the article, your comments have nothing to do with the article, so you are projecting again.
Your biblical comments have nothing to do with the seeded article.
Your denial is telling.
Orange county is targeting classic books, to ban them from classrooms, that is what the article is about.
Another location, doing the same thing, has resulted in the christian bible being banned.
Cjcold has indicated that under Orange county standards, the bible also would qualify for banning.
Cjcold's comment is therefore "on-topic".
I listed just a few of the things in the bible that would indicate that banning the bible would be consistent with complaints of the other books attempting to be banned.
Therefore my comment is "on-topic".
Your denials of these facts have reached the point of trolling, so I will not be responding any further to your juvenile rebuttals.
I've denied nothing.
Is the Bible currently used in this Blue County's classrooms?
How silly.
let's review the current conservative agenda -
The saddest and scariest thing of all is that are accomplishing and every one of those bullets in varying degrees.
How about you show links to all of those claims to back them up.
He is always factual and truthful unlike you with your agnorance and PD&D plus delusion.
look up the claims yourself. that screen in front of you offers a lot more than what it's used for.
by the one who claims they're always 'right' and always schooling US
he's not schooling anyone...
LOL, it's Florida where intelligence goes to die.
Moms of Liberty was born here so that gives you an idea of the stupidity prevalent in Florida.
Seems the powers-that-be in Florida no longer care for secular tourists.
Those hateful intolerant agnorant bitches are responsible for some of dev's factual and truthful CONServative agenda.
moms for liberty my big fat ass
it's a scam, like all their other movements...
cashing in on dividing america...
I never read Paradise Lost.
I didn't even know what it was about...Haha
Found a quick description.
The good thing being that the bible is a work of fiction.
I tried to read Dante's Inferno once. Didn't get all the way through.
That book was hard. Haha
The first chapter was about how to read and understand what he is trying to say...
Tried to read it myself.
Would much rather read Dune 10 times in a row.
Honestly, if you need to make it that complicated then you are probably full of shit.
Haha. I think what fucked me up was reading the intro. It was almost like it was indoctrinating you to read it a certain way.
They talked like this and meant this in this age, etc.
I about feel like if I could have just read it first without all the commentary beforehand it would have been easier.
How can I explain, almost like it wanted for me to see it a certain way.
Then I thought, why am I trying to find any deep meaning in this. Then I lost interest...
It did have some cool lines though.
I tried reading War and Peace in high school. What an arrogant little fool I was
Dante's Inferno is one part of the Divine Comedy where the author makes fun of people and the political establishment calling people hypocrites. It is only through true faith and grace can one ascend to Heaven. Inferno, the first part, is about seeing physical sins for what it is. In Purgitorio, the second part, Dante talks about seven terraces, or another reference to the seven deadly sins. Here sins are phycological. Paradiso, the third part, is Virgil's trip through the Heavens. The cardinal virtues are lost on the people depicted the physical love between people that takes precedence over the love for God.
It was Milton trying to fill in the gaps in the Bible. There is a lot of talk about the seven deadly sins - for example after the Serpent speaks to Eve she is jealous that God denies her and Adam wisdom and seeks to rise above her station. Satan has corrupted her with pride. But at it's base all Milton really says listening to Satan will make one confused.
I can certainly understand why the Republicans and other conservatives want to keep The Handmaids' Tale away from their kids - they're too scared to look into a mirror and don't want their kids to realize their propensity for being Neanderthals.
Republicans'/conservatives' favourite poster:
Now now, there needs to be a basket of laundry in there...
Barefoot and pregnant slaving over a hot stove.
Except for the pregnant part, been there and done that while she was out earning the bacon for both of us. (and she had a very high paying job)
Somebody had to stay home, walk the dog and put supper on the table.
Hey...people break pinkie toes like that. Ask me how I know
Okay, I'll bite. How do you know?
When I was pregnant with the first one, I was in the kitchen cooking dinner. Mr G was watching TV and yelled at me to "come look at this!" Well, being barefoot I walked straight into a wall and broke my pinkie toe.
Since I was active duty at the time and went and had it looked at in the acute care clinic I had to do an incident report with our Facility Manager. He busted up over the fact I was pregnant, in the kitchen, barefoot
I walked through a door barefoot and caught the frame with my pinkie toe a few years ago. I was at my parents' house, so I couldn't let loose with the cuss words I wanted to yell. And then it just sort of stopped hurting until a few hours later. I took an xray of it when I got to work, and yeah, it was broken. I taped it to the toe next to it and limped for a few days.
They didn't xray me on account of the pregnancy. But I got a shoe waiver for a week
You improved on the poster - you came when hubby called. LOL
... and then right back up on the line for you soldier.
"The books you are inquiring about have not been rejected but are rather still going through reviews."
Lol.
The fact that those books are "under review" by right wingers is the problem itself.
So they want to keep sex out of class, huh? Well I must digress and totally agree with this decision. Sex has no place on school property. Students are there to learn and do their homework assignments.
s/
These so called conservatives--who are not conservative because real conservatism died decades ago--have forgotten the commonalities of books and food. Take food as an example, if you don't like that particular type don't eat it. Its really not that complicated.
Trying to keep sex away from teens is an impossible mission.
Hormones will always win out.
I actually bonded with my niece with her reading the books 13 Reasons Why. I didn't read the books but watched the Netflix tv version.
We would talk about it.
I imagine that would be banned real quick. I am surprised I haven't seen it on any lists.
I probably shouldn't give them ideas...
and then there's the internetz...
If we are going to be so concerned about sex then I demand all displays of heterosexual activity be banned from Florida schools.
I believe 'sex' is being used as a political ploy by certain politicians to achieve a specific control over what is taught and who is permitted to teach it.
How in the world do they expect to offer AP classes while eliminating sex from the books or plays they teach? They do know that AP classes are taught at a college level, yes? And that college students are expected to know that sex exists and deal with it in a mature manner?
It's the Puritian in them that they can't control, sandy.
It is really up to the parents, isn't it?
Not radicals.
No, it's not up to the parents. Colleges are not required to give credit for classes that claim to be taught on a college level, but aren't. The fact that Mommy and Daddy want to keep their kids ignorant of life does not mean colleges need to dumb down their requirements.
It is up to the parents if they want their kids to take AP classes in high school for college credit
Parents can be radicals and radicals can be parents, your attempt to split them into separate groups is nothing more than partisan abstractionism a.k.a. hogwash.
My daughter took AP classes which we paid for and I'm glad we did. She graduated with a BSN in 4 years...the average time is 5 years
I took a few, and had enough credits to graduate in 3.5 years, but needed a few biology courses that were only offered in the spring. But that gave me an easy last semester of college.
I wish we had had AP classes available back in the Middle Ages
the elimination of AP classes by a school board in colorado led to a student protest and then an eventual total recall of the school board in the largest county in the metro area years ago.
What county is that?
jefferson
I thought that was the biggest county in the metro area
They are not your kids!
What a very emotional response, and entirely non-responsive to anything I've said.
No, they are not my kids. Which is why I am not requiring them to take AP classes.
But if Florida parents want their high school kids to take classes that confer college credit, they need to expect that those kids can handle college-level course material.
It is the only response.
But if Florida parents want their high school kids to take classes that confer college credit, they need to expect that those kids can handle college-level course material.
Which amounts to what these days?
In part, at least, it amounts to the classics. Watering down curricula to pander to prudes is irrational.
What do you mean?
Are they still teaching the classic books at the university?
Watering down curricula
That was done long ago.
If you read my comment that originated this thread, you'll see that I was addressing Advanced Placement courses. You do know that many high schools offer such courses, yes? You know they're college-level courses, yes? Do you object to challenging advanced students with material that nets them college credit?
More emotion.
No.
That's where one goes from basic world history to learning about people like Madame de Pompadour. As long as lines are not crossed.
You're calling for a watered-down curriculum.
Sad.
Meh. Sort of. An entire year of high school instruction will get you credit for a half year of freshman level coursework, provided you can pass the test. The exception to that is AP Calculus B/C, which gets you two semesters credit.
Seems in many cases that the parents are the extreme radicals.
Nothing you've said negates the fact that they're college-level courses.
that's what some conservatives fear the most...
I'm calling for a return to education.
Removing classic literature from English classes is the opposite, Vic.
You are a little late:
So, although Montás and Weinstein seem to think that things went wrong recently, things (from the point of view they represent) were wrong from the start. The conflict these professors are experiencing between their educational ideals and the priorities of their institutions is baked into the system.
Nothing in that article says that classic literature is being removed from college curricula. It debates how it should be taught, not whether it should be taught.
Nuts. Those who frown on education.
While calling it radical/liberal/indoctrination - fucking nuts.
... and they're not wards of the imaginary christo-fascist state either.
thumpers have no business anywhere near public policy decisions...
Wow....this is downright insulting. The books we read and the Shakespeare we read in school. I doubt if we would have gone to see Romeo and Juliet in the ninth grade. And then there was The Sun Also Rises that we read my junior year. The protagonist is impotent.
I remember watching the Franco Zeferelli version of Romeo and Juliet in high school - the one with nudity. It wasn't a big deal.
Today's far right wing is more prudish than Elizabethan London was 400 years ago. Shakespeare told a lot of sex jokes.
Ok....our class was a lot more immature than yours. Lots of them tittered when they saw the bare boobies
Our teacher gave us a stern warning ahead of time to behave ourselves.
I remember in 11th grade our history teacher was showing us examples of Renaissance art. A few of the girls in my class went totally off the rails when the slide of the Statue of David came up. Beet red and gasping. I thought to myself - how totally childish.
not the same girls that didn't finish their senior year of high school by any chance, were they?
my art class also, prior to a visit to the art museum over 50+ years ago...
You hit the nail on the head - prudish.
Those moms for liberty and today's alleged CONServatives are a bunch of frigid biotches and assholes who don't want anyone else getting any since they're not.
Most of the people who want to ban these books have probably never read a book in their life that wasnt written by Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Jesse Waters, or Wayne Allen Root.
To ban a book would mean preventing anyone from reading it. Like the left tried to do with Mark Twain.
Removing an innapropriate book from the curriculum is far different.
I'm rather sure that the people who want to "remove" these books are not qualified to make that decision.
It's ''Moms for Liberty'' in Florida and most have never read the books they want removed by their own admission.
I think they are the only ones qualified. Especially in this era.
And the people that want them in are?
Parents have a right to review what their kids are being taught; and if they don't agree with it work at getting it changed.
Democrats/leftists are just pissed off that parents are now taking an active interest in their children's education- rather than just shipping the off to them to the tax payer funded Democrat public indoctrination centers like good little lemmings.
aka the teenage abortion rehab club...
I'm positive they're not qualified.
Those frigid bitches have never read the books they're banning.
moms for liberty my big fat ass - moms for fascism is more fitting
who are they to decide what ANYONE can read?
Qualified? Without having even read the books they're burning? I mean banning?
moms for fascism is more accurate.
I remember reading Revolt in 2100 by Robert Heinlein in 8th grade. One of the passages had the guy comparing a woman's breasts to a cluster of grapes. My male teacher commented that he didn't think that was a compliment since a cluster of grapes is lumpy. NONE of us were traumatized by the passage or his comment. It is ridiculous to think that middle schoolers or high schoolers do not know about sex.
I wonder if the Bible should be banned for sex - there is A LOT of that going on in there - Adam & Eve were naked & it was pointed out time & time again. King David watched Bathsheba bathe - anyone say "voyeur".
Wait until they see what Lot's daughters got up to with Daddy
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show its own shame." —Oscar Wilde
So the people who pitched a fit over Tom Sawyer, To Kill A Mockingbird and a few other classic books are now playing the victim card.
At least they are consistent with their hypocrisy.
Show where the author of the article, any of the teachers quoted in the article, or any of the people who have posted comments here "pitched a fit over Tom Sawyer, To Kill A Mockingbird and a few other classic books".
I bet he can't.
I'm positive he can't, yet he made the claims so its time for him to back it up or STFU.
Show me were I mentioned teachers.
I'm sure you can't.
The article quotes teachers which is included in your "so the people", and that was a very lame attempt at deflection. Now post your proof that any of the people associated with the article, including the author and the teachers interviewed, or anyone who commented here "pitched a fit over Tom Sawyer, To Kill A Mockingbird and a few other classic books".
See, we knew he had nothing to offer.
We need a high five emoji
Well, I was right. You can't. I even gave you all a few days.
Neither will ever happen
You have nothing to offer. I gave you plenty of time to back up your BS, and I did reply to you and show you exactly what was included in your "so the people" as teachers were quoted in the article; however, I believe you never even read the article since you seem to have no idea that teachers were included in the article, but you do you and keep playing the victim, and never backing up anything you say.
You couldn't complete a simple task and you expect me to even remotely take you serious?
I did complete your simple task. I showed you exactly where your comment included teachers. You couldn't handle being called out so now you're whining and still not providing proof of your comment (because we all knew you couldn't). I'll keep calling out your BS, and again, you have two choices - suck it up or block me,
I was outraged that my daughters high school in Blue Fairfax County didn’t have a copy of Julian Jaynes, THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAK DOWN OF THE BICAMERAL MIND.
You know, if the goal is simply to try and keep sexual material (in general) out of the classroom, I get that. One jurisdiction or district might not worry about it as much as some others, but I do think this is something the community should be able to decide for itself.
This holds for me so long as it’s a generalized sexual limitation, and not specific. For example, if you allow sexual content, but not interracial or gay sexual content, then I think you’re crossing a line that improperly stigmatizes perfectly healthy, legal sexual activity. So I get why some schools don’t like Lolita, for example.
So I’m a little surprised to see that A Streetcar Named Desire is still ok. I mean there is a rape in that play. It’s not explicit, but it is obvious, and I don’t see how you can study that play and not talk about it.
This is not to say I wouldn’t let high school kids read the play. I would. Just wondering at the thought process here - if any.
I think your last sentence there is the likely scenario.
I think I saw yesterday where a bunch of thumper filth got the book Jarhead removed from a library for violence and pornographic content. the book was written by a USMC vet about his tour in iraq. he was pissed off.